By Fel (aka James Galloway) Table of Contents Chapter 1

Chapter 6

Just utterly ridiculous. For three days, the two of them had been locking horns over his declaration, and while she talked about understanding his position, she was doing absolutely everything in her power to basically turn his declaration of autonomy into “oh, I guess I’ll look the other way as far as Karis is concerned.” She was being almost silly in her stubborn refusal to budge when it came time to negotiate the actual terms. She wanted the House of Karinne to remain in the Siann. She wanted right of passage into and out of the Karis system for INS warships, as well as access to Kosigi for repairs and refits. She wanted the House of Karinne to continue to offer up its yearly tariff In short, she wanted the declaration of autonomy to be a political machination, and she kept control of the house in every way but on a piece of paper.

Needless to say, the negotiations with her had been…spirited. Dahnai seemed to have forgotten how bullheaded Jason could be, and she had gotten pretty combative quite a few times during the sessions.

But that wasn’t the reason that Jason was in a bad mood.

Aya. Was going. To die.

He knew she did it. She was only one that had motive, means, and opportunity. That put her at the very top of a very short list, and as soon as he got home, he was going to storm into her office in the barracks, rip her out of her armor, and spank her with a fucking scourge.

He inspected the damage in a mirror, and it was totally beyond any hope of covering it up.

Jason Karinne looked like a mutant smurf.

His skin was healthy shade of dark blue, at least healthy to a Faey, the coloring so deeply ingrained into his skin that there was absolutely no way to clear it. Not even Songa could do anything about this. She could use some medical tricks to revert his skin when it took on that dusky grayish hue that it got after brief exposure to the Draconis sun, but this was even beyond that, and she’d given him that professional opinion after rushing to his house after he told her he had a medical emergency, for he did indeed have second degree sunburn over most of his body and was a mere step below sun poisoning…then he heard her burst into laughter as soon as she got on the other side of his door.

So Songa got added to the list.

Jason did not look good with blue skin. It didn’t suit him, and it didn’t look right on him. But this was the full expression of his thousand year-repressed Faey genes, excited by the unique light wavelengths of the blue sun of Draconis, or in this case, excited by the artificially reproduced wavelengths created by the tanning bed in his basement. It had two settings, one for the Terran sun and one for the Draconis sun, and he knew that Aya had switched those settings when he conducted his twice weekly session of 90 minutes at low UV, to maintain at least a somewhat decent tan, so he wouldn’t burn if he spent a couple of hours under the Terran sun. The Karisian atmosphere filtered out almost all of the UV bands that caused human melanin to tan, or burn for that matter, and all Terrans on the planet had to spend time in a tanning booth else they’d turn as pale as their natural melanin levels would allow. For Jason, who had some British blood in him, that could be rather pale, but the southern French and Spanish in him also made it relatively easy for him to tan. But that ease of tanning had turned against him in this case, where 90 minutes exposed to high-level Draconis radiation had triggered a rapid alteration in him, which also gave him a fairly nasty sunburn. The sunburn Songa could heal, but she couldn’t do anything about the color.

The only ones that had been at home had been Aya, Ayama, and Surin, but his servants wouldn’t dare do something like this. And Jason was never going to merge into the biogenic network to surf Civnet and play maddeningly addictive puzzle games in the tanning bed and rely on the settings and timer ever again. It left him unaware of his immediate surroundings.

But he was at home, damn it all, the one place he was supposed to feel safe and secure.

Jason set down the mirror in disgust and looked up at Chirk. Her compound eyes regarded him inquisitively, her small, useless wings fanning a bit on her back as they tended to do, wings that marked her as the noble cast, and thus among the most intelligent beings in the sector. It was an alien intelligence, insectoid, but Jason had come to learn and appreciate just how damn fucking smart the Kizzik really were. “I see no reason to be upset,” her translator intoned. “It does not look entirely displeasing.”

“It does to me,” he replied with a grunt, pushing the mirror away with his blue-skinned hand. The tanning bed had done its evil work; Jason tanned nude, and every square inch of him was blue, even his penis and scrotum. “I’m gonna kill Aya, I swear I will,” he snapped churlishly, then leaned back in his chair and threw his bare arms up. Jason was sitting in his chair naked after taking off his armor, to more fully survey the damage. “Alright, what’s on the agenda today?”

“If appearing thus in public disturbs you, Revered hive-leader, then this is not a good day,” she warned. “There are a large number ship christenings on the agenda today, two carriers, three battleships, and two tactical battleships, on top of two tactical cruisers, three cruisers, and five destroyers, and you have scheduled yourself to attend them all in person. The first, for the new carrier, is slated to begin in eighty-six minutes, with each christening staggered to begin immediately after the last. The daily meeting of the Confederate Council is in five hours twenty-one minutes. You have another negotiation session scheduled with Imperial hive-leader Dahnai in seven hours thirty-three minutes. You have the weekly meeting of the cabinet in nine hours two minutes.”

“Oh yeah, they were set to come off the line today,” Jason remembered. “And I guess they’re ready to activate the tactical battleship they parked.” Dellin had jimmied the schedules around to get double the number of workers on the large ships to get them out of the dock early, shifting manpower to finishing the cosmetics, because he wanted those docks turned around to start on a new battleship as quickly as possible. The big ones had been the carrier docks, because he was ready to start construction of a battleship and tactical battleship in those bays. They had the keels and quite a few modular compartments parked around the drydock just waiting to get them in there to start assembling them. The tactical battleship they’d parked because the crew wasn’t ready, well, they were ready now.

And those were just the big ships. There were also 6 tactical cruisers, 4 cruisers (all new cruisers were now Mark II cruisers, so Dellin no longer differentiated on his boards), and 6 destroyers all within two days of completion, but all of those were being built in the smaller docks. Those docks would turn around and build the components for new heavy docks instead of starting on new ships, to increase their production capacity of large ships, to meet the demand for when they had to face the Benga.

So, they were going from four main battleships to seven, and adding two more tactical battleships, and that was on top of them getting the second capitol ship not long ago. Juma certainly had to be wearing a maxipad today to prevent rusting the codpiece of her armor.

So, there was all that, and there was also something just as important today, and that was Rann’s birthday planning. It was only six days away, and Jyslin was handling that part of things since Jason was so busy. They were having his party on the beach at home in the late morning, and Yeri had arranged it so the leaders didn’t start to arrive until later in the afternoon. It gave as much time as possible to Rann, which was only fair to him…a boy doesn’t turn six every day, after all.

And he prayed to God that this blue faded out before then. He’d never been burned this deeply before, had his skin turn this blue before. It usually took four or five days for it to fade, like a sunburn, but the deeper the blue, the longer it took.

Just another reason that Aya was going to fucking die.

“Well, I guess I could wear my helmet with my armor,” he mused, looking over to where it was sitting on its stand, waiting for him to put it back on. Since he had to go right back out again, there was no reason to go get a tee and jeans on. He then sighed, “or, I just bow to the inevitability of it.” He activated his military PA, which would put out a message on the military command frequencies, right from the desk of the Grand Duke. “This is the Grand Duke Karinne. I’ll be attending the christenings of the new ships on schedule today. But, since someone sabotaged my tanning bed, and as a result has made me turn blue as a Faey, the first person to laugh, giggle, chortle, grin, or even look even slightly amused in my general direction will be scrubbing the burn marks off the outer plating of the warships without an E-suit. That is all.”

Chirk gave him the most amused expression that a Kizzik could. “You know that will only incite the very reaction you seek to quash.”

“Probably, but this way the first person to get a messy object lesson has plenty of warning.”

Almost immediately, a holo winked on, from the command center. It was Shey. She took one look at him, then burst out into gales of laughter, literally falling backwards out of the picture. Chirk gave a clacking little sound that was as close to laughter as a Kizzik got. Juma, Myri, and Sioa crowded in over Shey’s now-vacant chair, and they too burst into laughter. Jason gave them all a dirty look, then blew out his breath and laughed himself.

“Now you look good,” Myri grinned. “Who did it?”

“I’m fairly sure it was Aya, getting back at me for the fight,” he replied with a grunt, which made them all laugh again. Faey loved a good joke, even it was on themselves. “I was surfing Civnet, and wasn’t keeping an eye on the tanning bed. I didn’t think I had to,” he growled. “She must have snuck down while I was playing Banyer’s Maze and changed the settings. She also gave me a fairly wicked sunburn. I’m going to get her for that.”

“You always tease us about our vanity,” Juma winked.

“Mine isn’t vanity, it’s so I don’t turn white as a sheet,” he replied. “Terrans can’t tan here, the atmosphere filters out the UV bands that make us tan.”

“It does for us too, but our base coloration is a little darker than yours,” Myri grinned.

“So, I hope you four are really good at holding your breath,” he threatened, which made them all laugh again Shey’s hand appeared at the bottom of the hollow, stiffened into a claw almost like a drowning woman thrusting it up seeking help, then it disappeared again. “And tell Shey that she just earned herself a double shift.”

“She’s working dayshift today,” Myri grinned.

“So, you really want to bump it up to a triple shift?” Jason retorted.

“Go ahead, I’ll just give her a day off for every shift you make her work,” Myri shot back playfully. “I see nothing wrong with laughing at what’s funny.”

“I’ll show you what’s funny,” he snapped waspishly, which made all three of them laugh even harder. “Now have Dellin get the ship christenings ironed out and send the final schedule to Chirk.”

“You gonna hide behind your helmet, wimpy boy?” Myri taunted.

“I know where you live, woman, and I have a key to your house,” he shot back ominously.

“You do need to rethink your policy of attending every christening, Jason,” Juma said more seriously. “Soon, it’s all you’re going to be doing.”

“Yeah, I know,” he sighed, leaning back in his chair a bit. “Maybe I’ll turn it into a revolving duty for the cabinet, have them attend christenings in my place.”

“I’m sure Jyslin could manage to attend a few. She’s not as busy now that she’s splitting her attention.”

“She’s even more busy,” he snorted. “She still works for Myleena, and now she’s managing the Paladins. And trust me, that’s a full time job.”

“Well, we’ll let you get back to plotting your revenge. And warn me, I wanna see it,” Myri winked.

“You’re now part of it,” he warned, which made her laugh again before the holo winked out. “Faey,” Jason sighed forlornly, throwing up his arms.

“Thanks, Chirk. I guess I should get my armor back on,” he sighed. “Oh, and track down Brall, I want to talk to him.”

Jason felt extremely self-conscious as he attended the first christening, and while he did get plenty of stares, and a rather snarkily funny comment from Ravai that earned her a swat, everyone took his sudden radical change in appearance rather well. Then again, by then the entire KMS knew that Jason had been pranked by one of his guards, and the Faey among them could appreciate it for the joke that it was.

But he did beat Ryn and Dera soundly about the head and shoulders when he got them back to his office for their constant sly looks.

He was about to settle in and plow through some of his paperwork before the Confederate Council meeting, but Zaa contacted him. He enabled the hologram from his side, forming that free-roaming full body hologram she preferred, which on her side was her in an open area of her main office with a hologram of his office, allowing full immersive interaction. Jason’s office wasn’t big enough to really allow that, at least from his side. The room the hologram on his side created had to be smaller than his office…and his office wasn’t really that big. “What’s up, Denmother?”

She gave him a curious look, then chuckled. “What by the ancestors happened to you?”

“Someone sabotaged my tanning bed,” he replied with a growl, pinching at his blue cheek. “And I’m gonna nail her ass to the wall when I get home tonight.”

She gave that same throaty, growling chuckle, then advanced towards his desk. “I have more information from my children within the Consortium,” she replied, sitting in the chair in front of his desk. “Cybi.” Cybi manifested her hologram by his desk, then immediately sat upon it, crossing her legs demurely and leaning on her hand. “The data sent isn’t as critical as the first packets. It mainly deals with Syndicate technology and tactics that my children have extracted from Consortium archives. Also, they now know about the string jammer,” she relayed. “They have not yet figured out how we are jamming their communications to Andromeda, but they know it is happening. They are no longer receiving the daily updates being transmitted from their main headquarters, and are even now working to discover how we’re doing it.”

“Good luck with that,” Jason chuckled. “How far outside the galaxy is it parked? Five thousand light years? And just outside a sector of the galaxy they no longer control.”

Zaa looked to Cybi. “I’ll have all data transmitted directly to you, Cybi, for you to store, study, and disseminate as necessary.”

“I will keep an encrypted channel open for your transmission.”

“Any word about Trieste?” Jason asked.

She shook her head. “But, I now have two children inside, in the moon itself,” she replied with a slight smile. “It was quite a feat for them to manage it, and I am very proud of them. We must wait a few days for them conduct their investigations, but they will ferret out the truth.”

“Outstanding,” Jason said with relief. “I still can’t figure out what they’re doing. They’re moving all their ships there like they’re about to start a major operation, but how? We destroyed their quantum phase device.”

“I know, but our foes have demonstrated ingenuity. I have little doubt their engineers have a plan.”

“Amen,” he grunted. He was about to say something else, but Miaari’s face appeared on a holo behind Zaa. She almost laughed, but when she saw Zaa’s hologram, she got control of herself almost immediately. “I have extremely critical news, cousin,” she said. “Extremely critical.”

“What, Mee?” he asked.

“We have intercepted the latest reports the Consortium are sending to their forces here. It’s not good news,” she declared. “They’ve dispatched a massive relief convoy to our galaxy, both military and civilian assets, in response to the Consortium forces here having extreme difficulty defeating Confederate resistance. The report warns the Consortium here to prepare the Imxi territory for colonization by a force of ten million Consortium civilians and one hundred thousand military warships. They’re moving to colonize our galaxy in force, Jason,” she said grimly. “The reports don’t say it, but it’s the opinion of several of my staff that have reviewed these missives that the Consortium are starting to execute a controlled retreat from Andromeda. The war is turning against them, and we think that they are starting a plan to build a fortress of sorts in our galaxy in case they lose the war. That way they can retreat here.”

Jason looked down at his desk…a hundred thousand Consortium warships. “Fuck, they’ll come in behind the Benga and just smash them,” he realized. “Even with two years of the Benga running amok in our galaxy, they’d still have an overwhelming advantage. The Benga couldn’t possibly conquer enough territory and set up in time to fight them off, especially since we’re here, and we’d be fighting them,” he reasoned. “The Consortium is counting on that fact now,” he realized. “They can’t beat us quickly, so they’ll use us to stall the Benga until their second wave gets here, then smash everything. And since they already have the Imxi and probably assets we don’t know about, they’ll be in a position to fight off a response if the Benga try to do the same thing.”

“I agree. The Consortium sending a large segment of their fleet here will most likely incite a response from the Syndicate, if they are indeed serious about conquering this galaxy,” Miaari added. “They may send a hundred thousand of their own ships to counter the Consortium reinforcements. But if they only sent their ships here to eliminate the Consortium presence here, they will not.”

“Denmother said it best when she first told me, Mee, the Benga are conquerors,” he said grimly . “If they think they can establish a foothold in this galaxy and try to conquer it, they will. So I’d bet my gestalt that the Syndicate will respond with a massive fleet of their own.”

“Yes, but only after they take advantage of the Consortium reducing their fleet opposing them and conquer as much Consortium territory as they can,” Zaa said. “For them, establishing complete domination of Andromeda is their primary objective. Once they have the galaxy under their control, they can pool their resources and then make the crossing to our galaxy.”

Jason leaned back and pondered a moment, then he asked Cybi a question almost out of the blue, just a random thought. “Cybi, can a Stargate bridge between here and Andromeda?”

“An intriguing concept,” she replied after a brief moment. “The mechanics of how the Stargates work actually require the Stargate to expend less energy to link to a sister gate that is further away, but the stumbling block would be the fact that the two gates must communicate to form a link. With a three month delay between here and Andromeda, it would take two gates trying to link approximately 563 days to complete the process. It would take five years to get the gate there, then another five years to link it back to Karis. That is theoretically possible, but highly inadvisable”